The Department of Education (DOE) will implement a Learner Unit Record Information and Tracking System (Lurits), across all provinces, from April, says education minister Naledi Pandor. It will be based on the system developed for the Western Cape.
Speaking at a media briefing, during a break in a meeting with the council of education ministers, Pandor said the first phase of the development of Lurits would be completed by the end of this month.
"For the first time, we will have a uniform database system that can track learners' progress through the public school system, that includes what subjects they have studied and their transfers either to other schools, or to further education and training colleges," she said.
Pandor hopes Lurits will help her department and the education departments of the provincial governments figure out why a large number of South African learners are inclined to drop out of the schooling system around the Grade Nine and 10 levels, or when they are 15 to 16 years of age. This is the time when compulsory schooling ends.
According to a DOE-sponsored study, 11% of learners who started schooling in 1996 will not complete their high school education and the department is unable to pinpoint the reasons.
"Apart from poverty or financial reasons, we also suspect many of the learners move out of the schooling system to the further education and training colleges," Pandor said.
She said her department was also worried about the high repetition levels at various grades and Lurits would help monitor this too.
DOE director-general Duncan Hindle said the current education management information system can only give the department a total number of learners in the system (12 million), but it cannot give data on individuals.
"There is definitely a thirst for education by learners, but we need more data on why so many are inclined to either repeat or drop out of school early," Hindle added.
Cameron Dugmore, MEC for education in the Western Cape, said his department has spent about R15 million over the past three years to develop the Lurits system for use in this province.
"We are now able to track exactly what subjects and transfers the 930 000 learners we have in the Western Cape are taking. This information is now research credible," Dugmore noted.
Pandor, Hindle and Dugmore did not comment on what other technology their departments are considering for the tracking of learners, such as the use of RFID tags.
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